Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

m.sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 680 posts

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#331

Post by maxxxxx »

Lev1a wrote: post #323
maxxxxx wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries in US Congress are also public and it's not a big deal. A lot of people don't like the idea of public salaries but I am pretty sure it would be to the benefit of the employee. Salary negotiation as an accountant should be pretty since you know exactly how much people make.

The main reason for public salaries for gov employees/law makers/etc. is that they are payed through taxes, employees of other companies (unless they do contract work for gov most of the time) are not.

Probably. My point was that a) it's not a big deal, nobody really cares and b) that public salaries are great for employees who want to negotiate. Confidential salaries are mainly a tool for employers to keep employees in the dark.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#332

Post by jimbobimbo »

Sangermaine wrote: post #154
cracell wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

It's called "privacy". You might want transparency "for the greater good" - I just want to be left alone. I'm not in public position, and I prefer not to disclose information about myself I don't have to disclose, thank you very much.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#333

Post by stale2002 »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #209
disiplus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about telling the candidates in front that the expected salary is in the range of x-y.

Any prospective employee who asks me is going to get an answer that is 20% lower than the other job description they were eligible for prior to asking.

That's sounds like a good way to lose candidates to competitors.

You are free to offer less money, and the candidate is then free to not waste their time talking with someone who will underpay them.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#334

Post by secabeen »

falcolas wrote: post #171
taurath wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd laugh my ass off if the CEO/upper management of any company in the US had to actually report to their employees how much they made, and not just through salary. There would be an uprising.

No uprising, but there has been an upwelling of CEO compensation, as nobody wants to lose their CEO due to a lack of compensation. IIRC, it's been one of the biggest driving forces in CEO's salaries skyrocketing. I don't think, however, that it would have a similar effect on our (i.e. employees) salaries.

It's the Lake Wobegon effect. No company wants to say their CEO is below the mean, and pay is a signal of CEO quality, so every company is always trying to pay above the mean, and so the mean inexorably rises and rises.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#335

Post by s73ver_ »

pmoriarty wrote: post #4

This is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask). But, IANAL. (Correction: It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.) I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never…

In the US, it is flat out illegal to place any prohibitions on employees sharing salary data with one another, obvious caveats about "at-will" and employers lying about why they fired you notwithstanding.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#336

Post by wpietri »

PatientTrades wrote: post #172

This is a bad law. This will perpetuate the wage gap between men and women employees. These kind of laws will continue the "don't ask, don't tell" aura around salary information. Instead of making this information secret, salary information needs to be pushed more public, so that when someone is paid less for equal work, there is absolutely no doubt about the salary that each employee receives.

I think it's just the opposite. Allowing employers to ask wage history helps maintain the wage gap. If women are underpaid at their first job, then that will propagate forward to future offers. If they can't ask, then they'll have a harder time knowing whether they can continue to underpay a woman. Having a stated salary range also makes it a little harder for them to play games.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#337

Post by s73ver_ »

komali2 wrote: post #111
disiplus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about telling the candidates in front that the expected salary is in the range of x-y.

Because every time I told a candidate a range, I'd hear back "ok so the salary is {{max_salary}}, cool." Nobody in the contracting world wants to undersell themselves. If somebody on the team is getting 75/hr, everybody better get 75/hr or hell gets raised. This is why the O&G industry out in Houston pushes back hard against any salary-sharing.

I'm failing to see the problem. They're negotiating. If you don't want to pay them max_salary, then you need to have a reason why not, and counter negotiate.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#338

Post by WalterBright »

ch4s3 wrote: post #294
lr4444lr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about kidnapping your loved ones for ransom?

ah yes, the booming American kidnapping business. /s Seriously though, it's not hard to find targets for this sort of thing by looking at census data and sales records for nice homes, yet it really never happens in the US. WHen was the last time you heard of some random lawyer, ceo, or banker getting kidnapped in the US?

Back when I worked for Data I/O, the wife of the CEO was kidnapped and held for ransom.

There was a home invasion a couple blocks away.

Lots of people prefer to keep a low profile and not attract these sorts of crimes.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#339

Post by adventured »

jononor wrote: post #290
adventured wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who doesn't have at least one person like that in their life? Although it definitely wouldn't be limited to just jealous or spiteful family. Public salary information for all people would cause routine problems between friends and family across countless situations and issues over a lifetime. It's a recipe for social disaster.

Tax information, which is both salary and wealth information, is public in Norway since some years now, in electronic form. Media did a bunch of useless posts about celebrities for a while. But apart from that I cannot think of any bad outcomes, certainly not a lot of social disasters.

Norway - Scandinavia in general - has a distinct culture that isn't shared by any other region on earth.

Some things that are perfectly normal in the US or South Korea or Colombia or China or Japan or Zambia or Saudi Arabia or India are without a doubt not considered acceptable or comfortable in Norway. That's how cultures work. What you're describing is an extension of Scandinavia's culture.

The hours worked in Japan or South Korea are culturally acceptable. They would not be in eg France. One could spend an immense amount of time listing the thousands of famous cultural variances between major nations, in regards to things being acceptable in one place but not in another.

Post reply on HN